Menning, Betty Vos (1927-2018)

MENNING, VOS, BEUKELMAN, DORHOUT, BABCOCK, HOLMES

Posted By: Paul Nagy (email)
Date: 6/19/2018 at 21:18:08

Betty Menning
January 5, 1927 - June 5, 2018

Betty Menning, age 91, of Alta, Iowa, passed peacefully over to Heaven on June 5, 2018, at the Methodist Manor Retirement Community in Storm Lake.

The third of three girls born to Rokus (Roy) C. and Minnie (Beukelman) Vos, Betty arrived in this world on January 5, 1927, at her parents' farm home in Murray County, Minnesota. After graduating from Sioux Center High in 1945, she worked as a telephone operator for four years while living at home. Then, on May 25, 1950, she married Carlton Abraham Menning at her parents' home.

Growing up during the Great Depression had a profound effect on the way she lived, saved, and spent money. Hard work and service came naturally for her. Baking became an everyday part of life. Indeed, she would buy flour by the twenty-five-pound bag, and few visitors would ever leave her home without a bucket of cookies or some homemade bread. She, also, had a reputation for making homemade cherry nut ice cream and a Swedish Nut Cake, even though she was of Dutch descent. Moreover, she and dad, still, mowed the cemetery lawn while in their eighties, and she, often, drove residents of the nursing homes to appointments, never accepting payment.

Sometime in the 1960s, Mom took a knitting class at the South School for $6.00. She said it was the best $6.00 she ever spent. Wherever she went, her knitting needles and latest project went with her. She knitted countless afghans, baby blankets, Christmas stockings, and mittens as well as teaching grandchildren and great-grandchildren this useful skill. She, even, taught an aid how to knit while at Methodist Manor. Once, after losing a mitten at school, John told his teacher not to worry; his mom would knit a new one for him when he got home.

Mom loved trees. She and dad would “discuss” how high up he should trim them, usually high enough so he didn’t hit his head when he mowed under them, but not high enough to let the grass grow well underneath. She, even, named one tree “Procrastination” because it grew so close to the garage that no one could, safely, cut it down.

Nothing, however, defined Mom more than her faith in God, and His plan for her life (Jeremiah 29:11). In the last months of her life, knowing that she was going to see her Savior sustained her. A well-worn and underlined Bible gives testament to her love for God’s Word. Whether there was a Bible study, a mission trip, or a new worship center to build, she, always, came … with cookies.

Thanks, Mom…

Betty is preceded in death by her parents; her sisters, Barbara Dorothy Dorhout and Dorothy Elizabeth Babcock; and her great-granddaughter, Ruth Willow Menning (stillborn daughter of Jeremy and Melissa Menning). She will be greatly missed by Carl, her husband of sixty-eight years; her four children: Paul and Jane (Ponsor), of Olathe, Kansas, Linda and Wes Holmes, of Alta, Iowa, Gregg and Diane (Appleseth), of Northfield, Minnesota, and John and Jeree (Carlson), of Fremont, Nebraska; fourteen grandchildren; and nineteen great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be at the Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Alta, Iowa, on Thursday, June 7, 2018, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. A Celebration of Life will take place Friday, June 8, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. at the Summit Evangelical Free Church in Alta. Burial will follow in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Alta. Visitation will take place Thursday, June 7, 2018, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Alta. The Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Home in Alta is in charge of the arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts will be divided between the Summit Evangelical Free Church and the Oakdale Evangelical Free Church.

Fratzke & Jensen Funeral Homes, Alta, Iowa, 2018.

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